~ Musings on faith, music, movies and books.

The Door and The Key

God gave each one of us different talents, abilities and gifts that we must use for His purposes. More often than not, though, when we first accepted Jesus into our lives, we didn’t know what potentials we have and what gifts we can use to bring glory to His name. It’s like God has given us a lot of things, but those things lie behind a special door, locked with a special keyhole that only a special key can open. A unique key, one that is made to open your door and unleash the potential that lies beyond that door.

The church is the key. God has given them the responsibility to nurture the growth of the believers and help them find and achieve their true purpose in life, that is to glorify God with all their have and what God has given them. As each of us is unique and have our own special keyholes, there are also a vast number of churches in this world and one of them has been specially designed to fit our keyhole and open the door. This is also one reason why we shouldn’t dispute between the large number of denominations and claim that one is better than the other, for every one of the churches are made according to God’s own design and purpose, as part of the Body of Christ. They were made to nurture and attend to different kinds of believers, each becoming unique keys to open up the different types of doors that each believer may have.

Now what will happen if you force a key that doesn’t fit into a keyhole, trying to open the door? Which one will be broken in the end? The key or the keyhole?

The answer is both.

When we force ourselves to serve and minister in ways that we’re not made to, we will either become bored or disgruntled, and soon our ministry will lose their meaning. Either we will stop ministering because we can find no meaning, or we can keep on ministering without meaning, both of which are bad for our spiritual health and growth. In this manner, our door is now left unopened because there is a wrong key on the keyhole that prevented us to put in the right key and open the door. We lose every reason to open the door, and we lose the desire to find the right key to open the door and we just leave the non-fitting key as it is on the keyhole. We just let things be, satisfied with the closed door, thinking “that’s as far as I get on opening the door”.

Ministering in the wrong place can also bring pain and hurt, and block us from opening the door. I tried ministering in music when I was in high school, but my high school fellowship was not the place to nurture my musical talent, and in the end I experienced a hurt that kept me out from the music ministry for more than four years, thinking that it was not my talent. I didn’t realize that actually music IS on the other side of my door, because my wrong environment made me think otherwise, thus in this manner, by forcing to open the door, the false key have broken up the keyhole. It took me a long time before God fixed my broken keyhole, called me again to the ministry and this time provided me with the right key, the right church, to open my door, unlocking my potential on the musical ministry.

Doing the wrong ministry can also bring harm to the church. It has the potential to prevent others with a true calling to that ministry to do the ministry, because we are doing it. Let’s say that we are actually not called to be a songleader, but we keep on doing it out of obligation and duty. Another person who actually have the talent to be a songleader could not minister there because there were no room for him to join the ministry. In the end, he either went to another church and became a songleader there, or were forced to took part in another ministry that is not his true calling (and breaking his keyhole). Thus, the key has become dull and out of shape, losing its ability to open the doors it should have opened, and in turn, damaging the church itself. Ministry in the church began to lose meaning and effectiveness, and many people are left in the dark with their true potentials unrealized.

The question I want to ask you today is, “Have you found the right key?”. Do not force a key that doesn’t fit your shape into your keyhole, you will only damage yourself, others and the church. God won’t be pleased with that.

We can also have more than one door in our lives. I thank God that he has given me two churches, two keys that each opened up different doors in my life. The first one opened my musical talents, and the other one opened my evangelical, counseling and encouragement or sharing talents. I never knew I was cut out to share to others, to speak to others and help them and encourage them to find their true calling and their way to Christ. It has only been since last month that God opened up this door for me, before I would never have imagined I had this talent and calling. It has also called me to write a lot lately, because I learn a lot of things from sharing and listening to others, that I felt that I must share these experiences with others too with my writings. These were a whole new dimension of me, a whole new lot of potentials that I never knew were lying dormant inside me.

When your spiritual growth seems to have stopped, ask God whether you still have another door that He wants you to open. If the answer is yes, ask for His guidance and calling to show you the right place to nurture your next phase of spiritual growth, to “find your next key and open the next door”.

My Conviction

For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes — the Jew first and also the Gentile. This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”